


Filler

by bexacaust



Category: Sly Cooper (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Baggage, F/M, Reminiscing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-28
Updated: 2017-03-28
Packaged: 2018-10-12 03:39:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10481271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bexacaust/pseuds/bexacaust
Summary: What closet doors, she wonders, is he shutting tonight.





	

She wonders which hole in his heart he's filling up now.

When alarms are ringing and weapons are locked and loaded and her sight is narrowed down to the scope of a flashlight beam, she wonders and wonders... Which hole in his heart is filling up now?

Which gap in his existence is he pouring stolen, smelted gold and glory into to patch up like broken mirrors and a cracked pipe's bowl? What part of his veneer is he smoothing out to hide the blood and failure and busted birthday-cake stains underneath the guise of a master criminal? What rips and tears is he patching with adrenaline rushes like gilded embroidery thread like he can pretend his world didn't start in shambles coated in die-cut down feathers and scattered, half-burnt tobacco that smelled like cloves and warmth?

What closet doors, she wonders, is he shutting tonight.

She's seen what little footage they have, she's seen what he can do. She's watched the way permafrost crawls along the edges of his smile like the rime and frost of one long lost in tundras unmapped; watched the way he shakes off his own anger and annoyance and demanding nature-

But never of others. He would never turn that ire on Bentley, on Murray... on her. Only on himself. On his enemies, and they were many, and frequent.

She lowers her gun and flashlight, finding his signature posed on a pedestal with a throwaway usb thumbdrive beneath it. And she knows, she knows that should she plug that into the computer it will show her all the evidence she needs to justify the theft; the signs of morality smeared and coated in the grease of old fingerprints and the dust from the jackets Sly once hid behind as his father swore and cursed and gagged on his last breaths.

She knows, she knows he'll be waiting for her.

Perched on her balcony railing, one leg dangling off the side as he hums whatever music her stereo will be playing when she arrives and flicks the lights on.

She turns in the evidence, tired beyond tired and burning from the inside out as she gets into her car and feels the engine hum through its frame. Streets blur by the windows in greasy streaks of neon lightning and her apartment complex is too, too vivid against a glowing horizon's line as the sun slowly rises. She pulls into the parking lot, already looking over the side of the building and tracing the wear and tear of acid rain and too many years of repaired concrete- comforting even in it's homely simplicity.

Her footsteps are heavy on the stairs as she ascends to the third floor, forgoing the elevator to let her mind tumble and tussle with thoughts she pushes away during her shift and her door seems ominous. And she takes a deep breath and plunges into imagined oceans of icewater to unlock and open it and he's there, on the balcony. The radio is humming through the air and her ears twitch in time with her tail's swaying motions as her heels make no sound on the carpet.

She bumps the door closed and watches his head slowly turn to look at her through the open sliding glass door.

_"Welcome home, Lita."_

She hates how that sentence warms her chest.

_"Rough night?"_

She wishes she could tell him to stop- stop being so MORTAL and SOFT and TOUCHABLE and REAL; tell him to stop being Sly Cooper where she can see it, let her push him into the mold of Criminal she's built in her head. Fit into the role of Male Ego she's built from twenty-something years of catcalls and snide remarks until she could wear her badge openly and glower at those who dared undermine her authority.

But he won't. She knows he won't.

And he slides from the balcony to his bare feet and the clink of the cane being set up against the wall as he enters again is so, so loud in her ears and she wants the world to shatter like glass if only to prove he can't be like this, that's its just another... another lie.

His hands are warm where they touch her arm and she rests her head against his shoulder and sighs against his neckfur; stifling the giggle at the tremor that bounces from limb to limb like electric charge. 

They stand in the quiet for a moment until he breaks it like dipping clawtips into warm water.

_"Lita, what's on your mind?"_

His voice rumbles in his chest first before it meets the air like low moving fog on the coast. Her hands move to his waist, and she curls her fingers in the soft fabric of his blue shirt and tries to pretend the feeling is the closest thing to home she's had since she left smiling and tired parents behind. How could she explain such a thing; explaining the feeling of willingly leaving the living to someone who had no choice or say in the matter?

What hole in his heart is she filling now?

_"Why can't you be honest with me?"_ , she asks, softly, gently, the natural rasp of her voice suddenly grating to her, _"Leave it behind, come to me instead, why...?"_

_"You know why."_ , he says softly, arms moving to wrap around her, _"You know why, Lita."_

She nods, screwing her eyes tight and hating that gentle vulnerability in his voice as he says it. He could no more leave behind being a thief than she could leave behind her badge. And she's tired of thinking and wondering and wants to act, act, act and she tells him so in whispers that are half English and half home sweet home. And she purrs and coos and pulls out that vulnerability piece by piece and saves it away, putting it on a silk pillow somewhere in her psyche and wishing he could give up a life of chasing down missing pieces and broken hearts to let her protect his.

Carmelita Montoya Fox is a police officer. She is an agent of INTERPOL. She is sworn to serve and to protect-

But what can she do when she wants to protect the one she chases for the greater good?

How had she gotten this deep? When had she fallen so far, when had it gotten past the whirlwind romance into something so soft and calm and clean?

How had they built a glass house with bloody hands like this?

And they lay on her couch, in old pajamas with mussed and damp hair and debate what food to call out for until he looks at her with a deadpan expression and asks her how much takeout she's had in the past week. And she laughs awkwardly and shrugs and he sits up with a grin as she squawks backwards onto the couch in a bedraggled heap of cackling witch's laughter and shoves him with her foot, whining when he pinches the tip of the sock and pulls it off to throw at her.

When had it gotten to the point where a worldwide wanted criminal was making crepes in her kitchen while she flipped through a TiVo menu to find one of the movies she always queued up for these days?

And why, oh why, did she pull him along with her as they yawned in dawnlight to collapse into the haphazard mess of blankets and pillows that was her bed?

Sly Cooper lived life back to front and in the background. He was a master thief, a wanted criminal, a felon of many shades and degrees.

And he made her crepes in the morning, and dabbed creme on the tip of her nose to laugh as he furiously tried to reach it with her tongue. And he liked it when she ran her claws through his fur, and he was the most ticklish on his ribs.

But when they curled together, and she felt the instinctual twitch of his body as he grabbed for her waist and hips to pull her close, she remembered. And when his tail curled over to rest against her bare leg, her mind called back that old case file. The autopsy reports, the crime scene photos, the empty safe, and the hollow eyed boy crouched in a closet and holding a cane twice his size against his body- under the winter coats and beside the strappy heels of a mother well-versed in money laundering.

And she wondered, watching the thief as he rested-

What hole in his heart was she filling now?


End file.
